


Whitecaps

by LunchboxBanshee



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Gen, Homesickness, Langst, Mixed Emotions, Selkie - Freeform, Selkie!Lance, Slight body horror???, Slow To Update, Team Bonding, Unreliable Narrator, Will Tag warnings and other characters as we go on!, grammar mistakes TM, kind of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 05:45:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13968615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunchboxBanshee/pseuds/LunchboxBanshee
Summary: There’s something unnatural in the way Lance thinks about Earth, it’s never the land he misses. With him it’s always the salt water waves as they crest or the feeling of the pale sand between your toes. Something in how Lance fights Keith in training, because for all his sloppy form, there is an odd strength in each of his blows. His teeth seem just a bit too sharp and his smile just a bit too long as it pulls at his cheeks when they really go at it.Yes there’s something quite odd in how he keeps that damned animal skin with him at all times.*+*+*In simpler terms: Six chapters of a Selkie!Lance in space.





	Whitecaps

 

1.

…_…_…_…_…

“I think can build a machine to look for it, like a Voltron Geiger counter.” Hunk said, looking down at the floorboards. His large hands were avidly wringing and the pale green tinge had not really faded from his face. Signs of his anxiety blanked his thoughts and if they were not put to a stop they would induce a panic attack. There were too many nights before tests at the garrison where Lance had pressed close to his friend’s side stringing his fingers through his hair, the sound of startled panting echoing in the academy’s background noise.

Lance smiled reassuringly and patted his friend’s shoulder, “Hunk, you big, gassy genius!” “It's pretty fascinating, really.” Hunk smiles a genuine yet weak grin, Mullet boy looks unimpressed. Keith had been shooting concerned glances Shiro’s way all morning and _of course_ those two just had to know each other. Well, actually, Lance knew that already, Kogane had used to spend his free time with Shiro at the academy.

“How long is that going to take you then, Hunk?” Questioned Shiro just a bit tensely, his own nerves barely restrained. _How amazing is this to meet and shake hands with his idol? It’s like a dream, scratch that it is a dream come true if you ignore the Aliens and whatever Voltron was._  Lance looks at his best friend and their eyes lock just for a second, brown and blue respectively. Silent conversation was a practiced thing between them after all. Suddenly his best friend’s eyes widened and his gaze was once again directed to the others in the cabin. “I uh, an hour maybe I really don’t know.” Hunk stuttered out, Pidge sent him a questioning stare which was completely fair because Hunk was known to rig up communication devices in fifteen minutes or less. Those hands had always been quick to piece together machines with an effortless understanding mirroring a mundane task like breathing. A simple device that would be tracking a only set signal should be a piece of cake for Hunk. So why would he be stalling unless, no— _Oh no._

_His pelt._

His pelt was back at the academy. Lance never liked to take his coat with him when he tried to sneak out, there were always too many concerns; it could get cut, or burnt, or shot- god the guards had shit aim. Or even worse the garrison could find out about his family and try and study them. If Shiro’s return proved anything, it was that the garrison was not to be trusted. ‘ _Why take the chance?_ ’ he had thought. But this, this wasn’t some short trip to ogle at the stars with Pidge while he ( _Lance wasn’t really sure what was going on with Pidge but if he says he’s a boy then Lance was going to address him as such_ ) worked no his odd tech, this was war and something bigger than just him. Sue him, because Aliens, real Aliens? Those were never in the picture. Until now, of course. He ran his tongue over his sharp molars. It wasn’t an option to leave his hide behind now, Lance refused to even think about doing that. Leaving his family was bad enough, there were horror stories his Mamá had told him about Selkies leaving their skins. About how it felt like losing yourself and being pulled apart, how it made you want to scratch your human image apart, your teeth weren’t your teeth, how your skin just wasn’t you. If Hunk was willing to stall then he’d take the generosity. Lance slipped outside when nobody was looking and honestly had no clue how to get back to the base but he knew he had to try.

There was actually one way, he supposed.

Keith’s hover bike. He had no clue how to pilot it, it didn’t run like any cargo ships he had piloted or one of the academy sims. ‘A ship is a ship; Keith will either try to tear me a new one anyway,’ Lance thinks, if he’s lucky Shiro might make a speech at his funeral or something exciting like that, he’d leave Hunk his Mom’s garlic knot recipe as consultation. Lance hops onto the bike and starts up the engines, they rev to life and the roar echos on the walls of the old cabin. Keith was going to be pissed. Four feet. Five feet. Ten feet off the ground and- speak of the devil Keith comes running outside trying in vain the grab on to his vehicle. Lance almost feels bad. _Almost_. It’s too late though because he’s already zipping through the sky faster than he would were he in his right mind, leaving his eyes watering and the knowledge that he is going to have windburn in the back of his mind as he leaves his newfound companions in the sandy grasps of the red clay desert.

——

“Only three minutes until the guard finishes changing shifts we’ve got to be quiet,” Lance stage whispers to the bike. He gets no response and despite not expecting one is disappointed. They’re both behind a large boulder in a blind spot where the cameras can’t see. With it being daytime the roof wasn’t a immediate option, there were guards at this hour. Only the main entrance had shifts right now so at least the risk was calculated.

Silently he trots to the door and frantically types in the passcode on the door. Sometime after Pidge had gotten ahold of password he had memorized it. Of course Pidge didn’t know that Lance had that information, Hunk had discovered it while snooping through Pidge’s diary awhile back. There wasn’t much to do around garrison during the little recreational time. When Lance wasn’t dragging the two of them to sneak out to the nearby town he and Hunk would gossip relentlessly.

The bulky steel door clicks open Lance rushes in the entrance without thinking, he can’t process anything right now. ‘ _So close, so close, you’re almost there, almost there,_ ’ his mind whispers frantically. Lance’s other senses are drowned out: his vision is a blur, black is creeping at the edges, his breath is erratic, heart pounding. The only thing working against the panic are his legs which carry him unfailingly across the system of halls to his quarters. As soon as the door of his and Hunk’s room is wrenched open Lance is tearing through his belongings. A jar of seashells from Cuba is pulled out from under his little cot and thrown to the side, the lid is knocked off and little oyster and snail shells spill on the floor, scattering everywhere. Unable to find the will to clean them up he keeps digging. An old shirt he’d been looking for pops up, some unfinished papers.

 

Glossy fur brushes his hand.

 

No sooner than Lance sees the pelt does he grab it and hugs it firmly to his chest. For the first time all night he can breathe, the empty part in him feels complete, like his skin is actually fitting on his person. A few seconds pass and Lance inhales and exhales against his own soft fur, its home is it’s purest form. Salt crystals still litter some parts of the pelt from his last swim in the ocean, photos of him and all of his family tumble out of the folds. One catches his attention. They’re on a white sand beach with relatives smiling blindingly, selkies and humans mingled together. In the photo he is holding two of his cousin’s cubs who resemble harp seals with how fluffy they were, his grandma a beautiful old woman with youthful dark blue eyes and his grandpa a ancient leopard seal with salt and pepper on his muzzle. Lance’s Father stands calmy towards the back a stark difference when compared to his Mother, a bright, freckled, red-brown creature who glowed in the sunset looking proudly over her offspring.  
That was _months_ ago, when he had picked up all his little nephews and nieces and kissed their pudgy cheeks telling them not to bother their parents _too_ much, when Lance had cried on his father’s shoulder because he wasn’t just leaving behind the sea but his family too. Mom had come up to him then with his skin in her arms and her own draped regally over her strong, bony shoulders. Ginger curls shifted in the draft that always accompanied the coast. ‘ _Come swimming with us mi hijo,_ ’ she’d said with a sense of finality and never in his life would Lance dream of denying her this. Off by the shore line all of his family members who were birthed with a selkie’s guise were waiting patiently for him in a deeper part of the water where the brine lapped at your waist, those without a fur played happily in the seafoam and wake, watching with expectant eyes. Lance remembers the sting in his eyes as he took in the scene and let out a string of delighted laughter, without a thought he had taken his fur slipping it over himself until the fur settled over him like it had hundreds of times before. Breathing deep Lance plunged into the ocean, flippers working through the water smoothly. His pod trailing right behind him as they dove in the depths. Lithe bodies twining against the currents, fish fleeing from their maws.

The clack of footsteps that sound out in the hall shakes him from his trance.

There’s a snap as Lance really comes back to the present moment, he picks one shaky knee up and takes a stand with the photos and pelt folded to his chest. The door to his and Hunk’s room closes shut and the lights on the control panel turn red and the room is locked. He doesn’t look back, can’t look back because there’s a feeling like coarse sand rubbing on his nerves that this may be the last he sees of this little room. Lance slinks low like a cat against the floor, his fur held firmly to his chest and speeds past the the dorms and meeting rooms that make up Galaxy Garrison building. Not a hair on his head can be seen by the observational windows that some of the staffs lounges have, his presence is silent and undetected. He does a backflip for show as he exits the building, sticking the landing perfectly as he exits the building onto the roof. If he’s seen by the cameras it won’t really matter, _he’s not coming back here_. It feels different to say that to himself, that he’s free from the dream that wavered his loyalty to his ocean. It feels _really_ , _really good_.

No one is around to hear the bike start up again leaving a cloud of silt and dust as the only evidence Lance was ever there.

***

When Lance finally parks the borrowed hoverbike it is by a gaping cave in the side of a canyon. Stalactites hangs ominously over his head like stone canines. The marbled limestone is covered in runes and pictographs of a lion, there are some he remembers from the bulletin board back in the shack. Without a doubt Lance knows the scribbles are thousands of years older than him. He walks deeper into the cave following the footprints of the others making sure to kick around pebbles and rocks so Hunk and the gang knows he’s back.

That was the plan anyway but it must have spooked them because the school dropout has him pinned aggressively to the wall. Lance looks Keith dead in his strange plum tinged irises and the harshly restrained fury he finds does not surprise him. The flat of the blade against his throat _does_ , however. Today has been difficult enough on his instincts but this pushes him over the edge, no bull seal likes a challenge and a knife a the neck is no different than a challenge in the end. Keith is angry and scared so in the end Lance can’t hold it against him ( _Some part of him wants to, and badly. A rival is not an enemy, but they are not a friend, he thinks even as Iverson screams in his head to be better, better, **better**._ ), he doubts that Keith would really kill him anyway.

  
Only because it’s the flat side of the knife though.

But that doesn’t stop a faint grow from escaping his lips- soft enough for the rest of his friends to not notice, deep enough that it’s not natural for a human.

“Woah, woah! Bubbly, pal, can’t you let him go?” A voice asks. Hunk is cautiously approaching the two of them. For now Lance ignores Hunk and opts to place a hand against the blade on his jugular. He scowls at Keith, “I know I’m handsome but do you think you could give me some personal space, Mullet?” he says sourly. Lance gets a frown in response but the weapon is lowered by a few inches, “Don’t steal my stuff again and don’t run this time, cargo pilot.”

“Keith, let him go!” Barks Shiro and in a predictable turn of events Mullet listens right away. Hunk sighs in relief: It’s satisfying to watch Shiro leash Kogane back like a disobedient dog until the full force of the man's disappointed glower is directed at him. Unlike Keith he doesn’t need to be told. Lance breaks eye contact and scuffs his sneakers on the cave floor. “Sorry,” he manages to grit out no meaning a word of it, “It won’t happen again, it was just really important to me that I got my stuff.” the words pain him, having to apologize to his rival in front of _everybody_ especially his idol. The gaze Shirogane gives him is somewhat kinder now and even Keith seems to have softened a bit. Lance keeps forgetting that Keith doesn’t really get emotions, there’s no hint of smugness in the way he looks at Lance. Everyone hushes suddenly as the cavern begins to glow an eerie blue.  
A circle illuminates the room floor chooses that moment to gives way. They all slide into a underground hallow landing in a shallow pool of underground spring water. The back of Lance’s jeans and jacket are soaked through but the feeling of clean, natural water for the first time in months pacifies him. Galaxy Garrison opted for chemical showers to save water, they were in the middle of a dessert after all. Groans and complaints are heard throughout the cave as they stand up one by one. Lance rises first, and looks up.

“Holy Crow.” He whispers under his breath, awed at the sight of a giant, blue painted mecha lion. She, and one could only assume with the lack of mane; was dazzling in a way he couldn’t explain, a glowing shield of clear horizontal diamonds surrounding her prone image. Two yellow lenses in the robot’s head lit up like two gentle suns, maybe it was Lance’s imagination but the gaze seemed to zero in on him. “Anyone else feel like they’re being watched?” Lance questioned as the soft shine flickered across the lion’s eyes. “Nope, just you buddy.” Hunk replied unhelpfully. Keith walked forward cautiously and placed a hand against the barrier surrounding the Blue lion. Lance tensed slightly fighting the urge to go up and slap Keith’s hands off the barrier. He recoiled immediately. Since when has he felt ownership over a alien piece of tech that had been shoved unceremoniously in a cave for who knows how many centuries? Kogane furrowed his eyebrows, “How do we get in?”  
Huffing Lance paces up as nostalgically as he can, gosh he really hopes he’s right about what he’s about to do. “Don’t be rude Keith, I’m sure she’ll let us in if we just knock.” his knuckles rapped lightly against the evanescent shield. It… let out a small pulse of energy and dissolved, diamonds of light peeling away from the point where Lance had pressed. In the back of his mind he heard the sounds of deep whale song, gul and cormorant cries, and the lilt of a creek trickling through his conscious mind. His eyes widened like dinner plates. A flash of white hot teal ripped across his vision and in the icy glare Lance witnessed five streaks of color in the shape of lions melding into one titan battle ship that cut down its enemies like a wildfire in a dry forest. Everything was tinted blue now and it felt right as if a puzzle piece had been fit into place.

“Voltron is a giant robot!” Hunk gushed in the background, “And there are more parts, I wonder where they are…” Pidge trailed off thoughtfully. Everyone but Lance jumped when the Blue lion bowed her great head to Lance and opened her jaws wide.

 **Awesome**.

The inside was coated in chrome and brightly lit, it was as frigid as the cave and the cool feeling seemed to sink onto your bones like a chilled silk sheet. Without hesitation Lance sat down in the pilot’s chair and let his pelt rest on his legs, he yelled when the seat jerked forward pulling him to the eyes of the lion. Shiro and the others warily stepped into the cockpit with surprised expressions on their faces as they took in the beautiful advanced engineering that made up Blue.  
“Lance? Are you okay?” Inquired Pidge and Lance didn’t respond because all he could hear was a soothing voice of hailstone and seawater growling out the secrets of how to pilot her. He feels giddy, “I’m peachy Pidgeon,” and his fingers press several buttons on the projected control board. Whatever he does the foggy window in front of Lance cleared giving way to a crystal clear view of the cave with statistics and a slight guide to help the pilot navigate.

“Woah,” Hunk breaths, but Shiro is one step ahead of his best friend. “Do you know what you are doing Lance?” It’s said softly with real concern but the comment still stings some. “Yeah, It’s like she’s speaking to me, but in my mind,” there’s probably a better way to phrase it with an analogy… “Let’s try this on for size.”

He presses a few more buttons and then latches onto the two handles, all around them the cavern shakes with the force of his lion’s roar. There is a slight delay as the ship winds up before pouncing unharmed through ten solid feet of rock as they burst from the mountain. The cockpit is full of terrified screeching but he ignores them because flying with this lion feels like home.

He can feel the slightest twist and turn of the lion and when he flies it’s with a flowing spiral of bounding leaps and twists in the air across the desert. Dust billows every where but they don’t stop. It’s like he’s swimming in the sea again with Mom, that weightless feeling you get as the currents pull you along, he listens to Blue’s music and sings along silently. They’re running across the sands ( _the wrong sands, not home, not his sands, too **red**_ ) and a brush of the controls then they’re in the sky, diving deeper and deeper into the riptide that is space.

Everyone is screaming, Hunk is gagging in his ear, Keith has hooked his fingertips into Lance’s nice bomber jacket digging then in painfully, and Pidge is yelling at him to slow down. He doesn’t, if anything he goes faster and stronger. “Where are you going?!” Lance shrugs, Blue has agendas and who is Lance to mess with them? Shiro seems to collect himself, “That Garla ship is chasing us.” “Stop backseat piloting guys,” Lance says but he’s already trying to figure out if this kitty has the proper arsenal to take out that warship. Blue, he knows, is on a mission. She _will_ get to where she needs to be. Lance trusts her to do that much and when she presents him with a glowing button he pressed it without thought.

They dodge the lilac plasma discharges as one and when Blue’s laser cuts through the ship in a arching loop the satisfaction too is shared.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading Whitecaps! I really hope you like it, any feedback or reviews are appreciated. I plan to continue to edit this and hopefully the next chapters will hold up to expectations. 
> 
> Come yell about any ships, head cannons, or prompts with me on my tumblr: https://buttercreamsoda.tumblr.com


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